A sad Punchline
by Ventus777
Summary: My follow story to "The First Joke".


A Sad Punch Line

Joker was broken out of Arkham a week after his episode. Harley managed to get him out easily without the help of others. When they got far enough away Harley then started to talk to the Joker. "Mistah J, we got nowhere else ta go. Tha cops have all of our hideouts under watch, where else can we go?" Joker closed his eyes and said "I got one place in mind…"

Joker thought he would never walk into this building ever again, but he must it is the only building that he could get his hands on: Kerman Chemical. He walked in turned on all the power and walked into the office hit the wall and the bed popped out of the wall. Joker then said "Harls can you be a doll and round everybody and everything up and bring them here? I want to rest." "Sure Puddin…J are you okay?" "I'm Fine! Fit as a Fiddle! I'm just tired that's all!" As Harley leaves Joker lays down on his bed, opens a secret compartment and takes out a small picture that was of a father and son. Then he says "If only that was the truth Harley, if only that were the truth…" He put the picture back and falls asleep.

Harley comes back and says "Hun, everybody's here and so are tha new recruits." Joker gets up and walks outside thinking to himself "Got to put those thoughts to the side, I need to make a good impressions on the new recruits." As he approaches the men he says "HELLLLLOOOOO everyone! I'm the Joker! Now I just wanted to say I see us like a family and as such I wanted to know all the new recruits names." He sits at the desk in front of the men. As each man says there name. Joker can be seen righting each name down. The last man approaches him and says "The name's Joey. Joey Kerman." Joker freezes, the pencil falls from his hand. "Wha-What was your name?" "Joey Kerman Jr. to be precise." The Joker falls out of his chair. Mumbling words that sound like "Here? N-No it can't be…but could it?" He climbs the stairs and says "Everyone go do…something. I don't know and I don't care." He walks in to the office and slams the door. Everyone walks away. After a while Harley walks in saying "Puddin…Are you okay?" "Harley…do you want to know what happened to me in Arkham?" "Does it have anything to with how ya been acting?" "Directly so. You always wanted my story Harley, so now you are going to get it." He explains to her what happened when he went to Arkham, the pill, the dreams, how the Joker became the Joker.

After he finished Harley walked over to the window. She says "Okay…That is the most depressing story I have ever heard." "Well what do you think I should do?" "Tell him. You will never be at you're A game unless you do." "Okay bring him in." Joey walks in and says "Boss, you wanted to see me?" "Um…Yes sit down." Joker then asks him why he wants to join and he replies with "My mother…she is really sick, and I need to pay the hospital bills." Joker then says "Um…You seem to know your way around this place. Why's that?" "My Pa…he used to own this building. Even after what he did I can't believe he let this building go to hell." "Your Father…That is the reason I called you in was because…" "What your my father? Is that some kind of initiation joke?" "No and yes that is who I am, Joey. You somehow found me and I will tell you everything your mother would not listen to." He tells Joey everything that happened. Joey starts pacing and then he says "Okay so let me get this straight: Everything that happened was not totally your choice, it was because of your altered state of mind?" "That's the gist of it." "Then I think we should go see Mom." Joker's heart begins to race at the thought but then he says "No. She will scream and go nuts. Even if…" "Listen she will see me there and that will be fine." "Okay let's go." And they left for Gotham memorial hospital but little did they know they were being followed.

As they walk toward the hospital, Joey says "This way we can go in through the emergency exit." "Why?" "Visiting hours stop at like 8 and we can't walk in the front door with Gotham's most wanted right?" "But it would be fuuun!" Then he pulls out a pistol and says "This will keep order, okay?" "Fine let's go." As they approached the door Joey saw a faint light go off but he disregarded it. As they approached the room, Joker picked up a tray and looked at himself, fixed his hair and took a deep breath. Joey walked in first and his mother said "Joey? Did you break in again?" He walked over to her and said "Yes but it was because I brought an old friend." Joker then walked in and said in a voice he had not used in a long time "Hey Hon." She looked at him and said "Joe?" "Yep. He found me a complete accident, really." "Why are you here?" "To talk. You never let me explain what happened." "Okay then let's talk." After he told her what he asked "W-What's wrong with you?" "Some sort of hereditary heart disease. Anything could cause a heart attack or heart failure." "Oh my-…" Then the door opened and Joker said "Back off, Bats. I'm trying to get a hold of my sanity." "You know I can't do that Joker and besides they know who you are and they are setting up a sniper just in case I fail." Joker gets up, straightens up his suit kisses his wife on the head and says "Okay Bats but I ask you one thing in return: You have to be rich to afford all your toys. So can you make an anonymous donation to pay for her condition? If you do I'll go and stay." Batman walks over to him and says "…Fine. Let's go." But as they were going to leave Joey shouts "Stop!" Pointing the gun at Batman. "You are going to stay right here Dad and he is going to let us leave right now!" Joker starts to walk over to him and says "Put the gun down Joey. It is alright I want to go." "But I don't! I finally got you back and I'm not going to lose you again!" "It is okay. It is not like you two don't know where I will be. I will be fine." No!" He shoots the wall and as he shoots he sees Batman is long gone. Almost right before he put the gun down, the window shatters and Joey hits the floor. Joker screams "JOEY!" He runs over to him and hold him. Joker was muttering "It's going to be okay Joey, it will all be okay…" Joey coughs up some blood "No it won't I am going to die and I-I killed mom… look at her." Joker turned and saw his once wife's face frozen in terror. She was not moving, not breathing." Joey then said in between coughs of blood "Get out of…here. You…need to use the…emergency exit. I…I lo-love you…Da…Daddy." Then he was silent. Joker starts to shake him saying "Joey...Joey?" Joker hugged his son's body and started to cry. As he was doing so he remembered what his son had said about the emergency exit. As tears started to roll down his face a sound came from his mouth that was heard through the building: "he-he-HE-HA-HA-HA-HA!" He put his son down on the ground and closed his eyes. He left through the emergency exit towards the building where the shot came from. He was going for blood and would not stop.

As he walked towards the door to the building he saw and picked up a pipe, saying to himself "How fitting!" As he walked up the stairs to the top floor he heard a voice say "Sir there is no one else in there. I should get going." As he got up Joker walked up to him and smacked the pipe clean into his knee, causing the sniper to hit the floor. As the sniper looked up he said "No I shot you!" "No you shot the most important thing in my life and for that you will pay." He hits both his hands and his other knee cap for good measure. Joker picks the earpiece of the sniper's head and says "Helllooo Commissioner! Just so you know I was "this" close to turning myself in for all the terrible things I have done, but you had to kill the innocent boy that brought me to that decision and the entirety of Gotham will pay the price because, personally I thought I could not get any crazier, but guess what you and your sniper buddy here just caused me to go beyond where I was before." He laughs in to the earpiece then drops it, crushing it under his heel. As he was about to leave he says "Oh I forgot something!" He picks up the pipe and hits the sniper clean in the head. He drops the pipe and runs away.

As he walked into the hideout Harley runs over to him and says "Puddin are you okay? I heard someone got shot at the hospital-Hey where's-J I'm so sorry. Are you okay" He walks towards the office and says "I'm okay. Really I have my way of dealing with the pain. By making Gotham burn! HE-HA-HA-HA-HA!" He goes inside and falls asleep.

Joker has a dream of a door. He starts boarding up the door. But then he takes the saw and make a smaller door inside of the door. When he was done the smaller door opened and out came Joey. Joey said "Hi Daddy!" Joker bent down and said "Hey Joey want to play a game?" "Sure!" If you saw Joker's face while dreaming you would see the happiest, sanest even, smile any deranged psychopath would have.


End file.
